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Compare Prices on Costa Magica Europe - Western Mediterranean Cruises

cruzen10

Sail Date:
November 2010

Destination:
Europe - Western Mediterranean

Embarkation:
Rome (Civitavecchia)

Let me start off by saying I had expected this to be a totally different experience than any of my previous 13 cruises. However, I never expected it to be the worst cruise I've ever been on. It was my first cruise out of a European port. I realize it left out of Italy, but I really thought it would be more amenable to the different nationalities on the cruise. They were not!

I DO NOT recommend this cruise to Americans unless they are fluent in Italian. The cruise line made very little effort to speak anything but Italian. It was near impossible to participate on any of the on board activities. The entertainment staff did say a lot of things, ie., Bingo and other games, in English but it was so fast and so mixed in with 5 other languages they rattled off, you could not follow at all. All the ship announcements were in Italian. It seemed that there were only a few announcements that they ever said in English. I was truly terrified that if there were an emergency on this ship, I More
would never have known what to do. This brings me to the Safety Issues. There was no safety drill upon embarkation at Civitavecchia. This cruise is a circle cruise; meaning people are embarking and disembarking at every port. They do consider Savona the first port, which was the last day for us. That is when they did a life boat drill. Guess it was our tough luck if anything happened the 6nights before that. This is an EXTREMELY budget cruise. It is advertised in Italy dirt cheap with kids sailing free. You truly get what you pay for. The Italians on this cruise were extremely rude. They do not believe in lines or waiting their turn. They were pushy and arrogant. The lack of communication was a huge problem. They also smoke like crazy and smoke anywhere they like. This ship has more smoking areas than non smoking areas. If this is a problem for you, be aware! If you are not used to horrible food and and plastic cups, do not take this cruise. You can see Costa has cut back everywhere they possible can. The only thing you could get 24/7 was coffee and water. They shut the ice cream machines all hours except buffet hours. You had to go to dinner every night in the dinning room. There was not a dinner buffet option. For this reason, people were dressed anywhere from formal to grunge in the dinning room.

I'm a 100% Italian American. I am used to good Italian food. There was NONE to be found on this cruise. The pasta dishes at dinner were the only thing that was near what I would call authentic Italian food. The buffet food was hardly edible. Dried out pizza, tasteless burgers and fries. How you can ruin french fries is beyond me. The cabins are good size like all Carnival products. The Entertainment on the first night was okay. The second night, okay, after that it was downhill right to the bottom at horrible. There were three nights where the highlight of the show was juggling. Each night they repeatedly dropped what they were juggling....pretty poor performance. You can tell the cruise lines was spending NO money on entertainment. They were also spending NO MONEY on Air Conditioning. It was almost was an unhealthy hot through out the entire ship. The dinning rooms was unbearable. I left every night as quickly as I could because of the heat. The poor staff was always sweating as were many of the guests. I think it was a health hazard, but I'm sure the cruise lines just looks at it as saving money.

The cruise lines provided very little direction when trying to find your tour buses and exit the ship. They never announced you were in port and could start disembarking or what deck to disembark from. It was always a guess if it were deck 3 or 0. The only saving grace at all on this cruise were the staff. The dinning room and other working crew all spoke English and were always willing to help you out. The were great. All in All I wish I had not gone on this cruise. I will gladly pay double or triple on my next cruise to get a better experience. Less

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Cabin review: Costa Magica

Our cabin was the only good thing about the whole cruise. It is very spacious. You do not hear very much at all from the other cabins. It was very quiet. There were three closets, lots of cabinet storage and a night stands. There was a nice size couch and table. The table was broken and did not go up and down as it was supposed to, but I'm sure others do. The balcony was spacious, the furniture is a bit shabby and getting worn looking. The cabin was ridiculously hot. We had to prop open the balcony door every single night. The in room A/C did not work at all. No one had working A/C. The color and decoration was typical carnival. Very circus looking. They only provide shampoo in a shower dispenser. You have to ask if you want any soap, shower cap or lotion. The bathroom was bare with no amenities at all. As a matter of fact, I only had wash cloths every other night. The hair dryer was horrible. One of those that you have to keep pressing the on button or it stops. Very inconvenient. There was a safe in the room that worked properly. The TV had only one english speaking station and that was not always working.

Port and Shore Excursions

Another beautiful, clean, enjoyable port. Again, you need transportation to get to the city. If you do a tour, definitely do one that goes into the gaudi museum. We did not, and I was very sorry. The church is magnificent. We did a city tour and was very disappointed with it. Of course the rude Italians from the ship followed on to the tour and talked through the whole thing. Even after asking them to please be quiet they continued talking so we missed a lot. Barcelona is another very safe feeling port. The shopping was great and people were very helpful.

Very pretty port. Again, you need transportation to the city. They sell a E14.00 shuttle ticket, r/t per person to get into town. Not sure if you really need it, they never even asked us for the ticket. Beautiful and quaint little village with lots of restaurants. Very safe and great shopping.

Palermo was a very typical Italian port. It was very convenient for people who wanted to just stroll around town. The cafes were wonderful and people were very friendly. Maps were very helpful and you could walk most of the city with the time in port.

Absolutely beautiful port! Very much like Monaco. You need to take a tour use a taxi to get into town. The drivers were straight forward, polite and professional. (a relief after Tunis). Unfortunately this stop is on Sunday so all the stores are closed. There were a few cafes open for pastries, but that was it! I felt very safe walking around. This city was immaculate.

Worst experience I have ever had in any port! Take an organized tour!!!!! We chose a taxi and thought we could just go to the market and back. BIG MISTAKE. Cab drivers are like hijacker's. Once they have you in the cab they try to get all kinds of money from you by taking you where you don't want to go. Our driver took us into the market and literally dragged us to every one of his "brothers" shops to make us buy goods. The people were the pushiest and nastiest I have ever come across. They were actually mad because we did not want to buy rugs. They were physically pushing us down at our shoulders to sit and look at rugs. We truly felt like hostages until the cabbie was ready for us to leave. We finally bought some oils in a shop just so he would leave us alone and let us go. Each shop he pushed us to had chairs that they made you sit in to see their goods. It was very very scary and intimidating. Even if you wanted to leave, you could not. The market was a maze and we could have never found our way out alone.